


I've Got You

by JazzKat1213



Series: We’ve Made It This Far [4]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora's Self Worth Issues, Canon Compliant, Catra Has Nightmares, F/F, Hugging, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Melog is not in this one but there is a reason for it, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, that's all this is, the girls comforting each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27104881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzKat1213/pseuds/JazzKat1213
Summary: All it takes is a ragged, watery breath and Catra’s reaching out, still not touching, but reaching. And she goes willingly, easily, quickly into her arms. She knows how to do this - how to act around Catra. It’s nice after the day's events.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Series: We’ve Made It This Far [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759741
Comments: 7
Kudos: 129





	I've Got You

**Author's Note:**

> They’re about 10 in the first part. And it’s about three months after the finale in the second.

She’s scared. So much of her life has been spent in fear of...something, anything, everything. She wrestles it down in the morning, ignores it when it picks at the edges of her mind in the day. The only time she can't remember ever feeling it is when Catra drags her to the roofs in the evenings. And she hates it. She’s not allowed to be scared. She’s not allowed to do, be, a lot of things but this...this is an important one. Being scared means being weak, and above all, she is not allowed to be weak.

No one is, but for some reason Shadow Weaver has deemed her the example, so she tries. She tries so hard every day to live up to the standard. And most days she never knows if she has, just keeps silent and hopes she’s done it when she falls asleep with Catra at her feet.

But today she knows she hasn’t. She _knows_. The burn from the grazes on her knees tells her as much. She’s dreading the fallout with every fibre of her being. It’s really only a matter of time before Shadow Weaver finds her - she’s hidden in the dark after all, so she probably knows she’s cowering here right now. And that’ll just make whatever she’s going to do worse. What she’s going to do to _Catra_ worse.

And that means she should leave. But she can’t. Not with the tears streaming down her face.  
_‘Weak, weak, weak.’_

She doesn’t know how long she’s been here, is unsure how much time she spent fighting the tears before she gave in. But they’re still coming steady, so here she’ll remain.

“Adora?” 

Her head jerks up from its place on her knees. She had almost got her breathing under control again, but it’s ruined now. She doesn’t want Catra to see her, she doesn’t want anyone to see her. There's too many consequences for this. Enough that she can't even let _Catra_ know, and it might make her want to cry more now, but it'll be better in the long run. It has to be.

“Aren’t we a little old for this?” She can tell Catra’s trying to keep her voice light but it falls flat. Mostly due to hypocrisy since Catra’s usually the one where she is; hiding. Not even Catra teasing her will get her to move from this spot right now. She forces her breaths to ease - Catra might hear them otherwise. She’s got that frankly unfair advantage. 

She doesn't hear Catra leave. She only has to wonder why for a minute; Catra can probably smell her. Not enough that she can pinpoint her, given the way her claws are clinking distantly on the floor, but enough that she knows she's here.

“Adora?” Catra calls again. It’s more worried now. And it hurts. Because she’s letting another person down. 

It might be for that reason, and that reason alone that she furiously wipes away the water on her face with the fabric of her shirt. Catra can see better than her (better than all the humans and even some hybrids) in the dark but she can’t see colour in this lighting - she won’t be able to see how red her eyes are. It makes her feel safe enough to start tapping at the metal ground. She knows Catra will hear it, follow it, and find her. 

It takes all of one minute before glowing eyes appear round the side of a pile of crates. And they’re not white - blank - like Shadow Weaver’s, they’re warm and cold respectively. It makes the breath rush out of her with relief she doesn't fully understand, loud enough that Catra’s ear flicks with it. 

Catra doesn’t question why she’s back here like she would. She’s not even sure where she is actually. Just...not where she’s supposed to be. She’ll figure it out though, later, when she's trusting Catra to get them back to the barracks. But now is not later, and Catra just sits next to her, not touching, just...near. 

All it takes is a ragged, watery breath and Catra’s reaching out, still not touching, but reaching. And she goes willingly, easily, quickly into her arms. She knows how to do this - how to act around Catra. It’s nice after the day's events. Catra curls her knees in and Adora puts her legs over them, a familiar position, one they always find themselves in on particularly bad days, when they can get away from the others. Catra pulls her in with an arm around her shoulder and she returns it by wrapping hers around her middle, hiding her face in her chest. 

She doesn’t cry again, she doesn’t let herself. It might not be fair to Catra, that she never lets her see her tears after she’s seen so many of hers, but she just can’t. It’d be one more failure; this time to the person she needs to be strongest for. 

“Wanna tell me what happened?”  
Not really. “You saw what happened.”  
_‘You know what she’s going to do when she finds out.’_  
“Yeah I saw, but I didn’t think it would be a big deal.”  
“It is a big deal, Catra! When Shadow Weaver finds out…”

Catra’s whole body goes rigid and she hates it; hates that she made it happen. Catra probably hadn’t considered what was going to happen to _her_ , because she hasn’t realised yet that every time she gets hurt it’s _Adora’s_ fault. Because she’s not good enough, because she can’t protect her the way she wants to, because she’s a terrible friend and a worse soldier. 

“She might not find out.” Catra’s trying for hopeful and it...it does make her feel better. For a moment.  
“She always finds out.” It’s small and muffled in the fabric of Catra’s shirt.  
“But this wasn’t even a test. It was just training, average, everyday, ordinary training that our Force Captain has no reason to report back to her.”

That means nothing; Shadow Weaver will learn. They both know that. Both have faced the consequences for thinking they could sneak anything by her. Catra more than any other cadet. And yet she’s still trying to make her feel better. Because she’s nice underneath the claws and the fangs and the hissing. She’s the nicest, most caring person Adora’s ever known, and she wouldn’t give her up for anything.

“You really think he won’t say anything to her?”  
“No, I don’t.”  
“What about the cadet?”  
“What cadet?”  
“The one that took me down. They might say something.”  
“They might now. But not once I’m done with them.”  
“Catra…” And then she’s smiling, a pitiful thing she’s glad is hidden in Catra’s chest. 

Catra might be joking, but if she finds out about the scrapes on her knees she definitely won’t be. She doesn’t want either of them to get into trouble for it - which they will. So she’ll just have to wear her long leggings (that she’d changed into immediately after training for this very reason) for the next two days and have to hope the tiny cuts won’t get infected.

She sighs, pushing into Catra’s chest as much as she dares. “Thanks.”  
“Anytime dummy. Now are you going to keep being sad or are we going to steal Kyle’s socks?”  
It gets her to laugh at least.

She doesn’t _want_ to leave yet. She kind of wants to stay here forever. It’s safe here, in the dark, with Catra. She can delude herself into thinking that Shadow Weaver can’t find them here. (Which is stupid, because shadows are her whole thing.) But what she wants doesn’t matter. And besides, stealing Kyle’s socks will make Catra smile. 

“We can do that.”

It still takes her a good minute to be able to move from her arms.

* * *

  
It doesn’t take too much to wake her, it never has. Which sometimes she’s annoyed by, but not tonight. Tonight she’s grateful. It means that as soon as water is soaking into her shirt, making it stick to the skin of her stomach, she’s awake. She’s not exactly aware, but she’s not dreaming either. 

She blinks her eyes open slowly, looks down at Catra asleep, head on her abdomen. It’s then that she realises the reason she woke up in the first place; Catra’s crying. It’s (almost) silent and clearly caused by whatever she’s dreaming about, but she’s still _crying_. 

It takes a moment for her sleepy state to do her normal checks. Catra’s teeth aren’t biting into anything, but her hands are on Adora’s sides and they could very quickly become bladed. So she smooths them out with her fingers, moves them carefully off her body and down to the bedsheets. Catra shifts, a breathless whimper getting lost in Adora’s sleep shirt, but she doesn't wake. 

She doesn’t _want_ to wake her. Sleep never comes easy to Catra, even if sharing a bed again has improved that. Her goal right now is to try and soothe her thoughts while keeping her asleep. It’s a difficult task, one she hasn’t been able to complete successfully yet, but she promises herself she will one day. 

Catra’s not trashing though, which is good. Normally by now she’s at least moving, but she’s practically frozen, hands not even gripping at the bed, lying there where Adora’s left them. She strokes as lightly as she’s able at the top of Catra’s head, careful not to touch her ears. (They’re too sensitive; it’ll wake her up almost instantly.)

She counts to a hundred, just doing that. But Catra doesn’t stop, in fact a few more of those little whimpers get lost in her stomach. And it’s starting to worry her properly now (not that waking up to her girlfriend crying in her sleep _didn’t_ have her worried in the first place.) She lets her hand add a little more pressure and Catra snuffles in her sleep (and she’s sad she can’t obsess over how cute it is but now is really not the time.) Her other hand finds its way to Catra’s shoulder, begins stroking there as well. If she’s going to wake her up, she’s at least going to do it _nicely_.

It doesn’t take all that long (or that much increased pressure) before she feels Catra’s eyelashes flutter as she wakes up. She doesn’t lash out anymore (which she’s grateful for, even if She-Ra’s magic made easy work of the shallow scratches.) Instead her whole body locks up, prepared for a fight before remembering where she is; that she’s safe. Catra lifts her head, looks at where her hands are and then at Adora’s face. She seems to realise slowly just why she’s woken her.

She sits up, lifts her hand to find the water on her skin, clearly still disorientated from the pull back to reality. But Adora’s prepared for it, this always happens when she wakes Catra before her own head does. So she sits up as well and waits. She doesn’t touch her in any way other than a hand on her knee, just to let her know she’s here.

Again, it doesn’t take too long before, “Hey Adora.”  
She squeezes her knee and Catra looks down at it, a little confused.  
“Hey. You with me yet?”  
There’s a few slow blinks. “Give me a minute.”  
“Anything you need.”

Apparently what Catra needs is just a little longer adjusting to the world of the awake before she’s reaching out for her. She guides Catra in with hands on her waist, bringing her legs over hers and tucking her into her neck. One hand around her shoulders, the other stroking a short path up and down her leg till a whispering purr starts.

And she begins the wait for Catra’s signal that she’s fully out of her own head, determined not to rush her into talking. If she even remembers what she was dreaming about, she doesn’t always. She lets Catra pull back when she’s ready, goes easily into the chaste kiss Catra gives her. 

She knows why Catra likes kissing her when she’s come down - or come up - from bad dreams, memories, even flashbacks when they happen. It’s because she _couldn’t_ do it back then. It’s another way of grounding her, reminding her where she is now, _who_ she is now. Catra kisses her jaw or cheek when they’re with people - which has only happened four times, but it’s enough that it’s become a rule - and her lips when they’re alone. 

She likes having these kinds of rules, stops her worrying about what she can and can’t do around Catra when she can’t tell her herself. 

Catra pulls her closer, tucking back into her chest, her purr now loud enough that Adora could hear it even if they weren’t wrapped around each other. 

“Wanna tell me what you were dreaming about?” She keeps it quiet, unsure of how sensitive her hearing is right now. Catra hums and she presses a kiss to her ear because of it.  
“Just...her. Distorted memories of being alone with her.”  
Catra’s claws slide out a little ways, catching in her clothing. Adora resumes her stroking along her leg, going against the grain, smoothing it back down again.  
“It’s okay Catra, she’s not here. You’re never going to be alone with her again.”  
“I know. It wasn’t as bad as the last one. No pain.”

The rigidity of her spine eases a little at that. Sometimes the nightmares have physical affects and, rare as it is, Catra's woken up a few times with phantom pains in her limbs. And the last thing Adora wants to do is make it worse. (Even if Catra has insisted time and again that after a few minutes her touch soothes it rather than making it flare.)

“Sorry I woke you up.”  
Catra kisses her collarbone like she’s consolidating for it. Which is ridiculous (even if it is sweet and makes her heart want to melt.)  
“You know it’s alright.”  
Catra pokes a now-clawless finger at her stomach. “And you know I don’t like waking you up.”  
She kisses her hair, just because she can, just because she wants to.  
“We wake each other up, that’s the deal.”  
Catra turns her head in a little so she can feel the smile while she can't see it.  
“Idiot.”

It’s not much longer after that, that Catra mutters, “Can we go back to sleep?” into her skin.  
“Like you have to ask.”

The tired little laugh Catra breathes on her neck makes her feel like she’s won something. She removes her hands from Catra’s form, lying back on the bed with her arm out. Catra gives her a soft smile in the dark before crawling up the bed. 

She's expecting Catra to mold herself to her side. But she's still prepared for the kiss Catra gives her, for the way she whispers, "I love you," into her skin. And Catra's ready for it when she says it back.

She doesn't know how easily they'll get back to sleep, doesn't know if they will at all. But she knows how to handle these nights now, they both do, and they get a little better at it every day. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hate writing last lines. Let it be said. Okay so I wrote this because I had them do this position in my main fic I'm working on right now (I'll leave a link to it at then end) and I just wanted to write about it. Also I wanted pre-canon Adora to get some comfort because I feel like people forget that them helping each other was mutual. 
> 
> I might do a a second chapter about the first night Catra wakes up with really bad phantom pains but idk yet. (Who are we kidding I'm probably gonna do it eventually.)
> 
> Also reason Melog's not here: Adora wasn't done for the day so Catra went to sleep in her own room (she feels like she's intruding on Adora's space if she goes there when she's not there) and then Melog fell asleep. Adora came to find her and since Catra wasn't asleep they went to Adora's room. This happens fairly often but they've spent exactly two nights alone in three months.  
> This might make more sense when I get that final chapter of [First Nights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25575313/chapters/62066398) out but eh...
> 
> Main fic: [You Should See Me In A Crown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670200/chapters/62321563) (it's canon divergent btw)


End file.
